When Pope Benedict XVI gave his scholarly address before a learned audience at Regensburg University, he had no idea it would lead to a massive uproar among so many Muslims. Ever since giving his September 12 address, the pope has been bombarded with criticism, much of it patently unfair.
In the course of his lengthy remarks, Pope Benedict cited a 14th... [Read more...]

NBC announced on October 19 that it would cut the “Mock Crucifixion” segment from its November 22 airing of Madonna’s “Confessions” concert.
NBC did the right thing, but the fact that it did not say why the offensive part of Madonna’s concert was cut showed cowardice. What NBC should have done is to admit that since... [Read more...]

William A. Donohue
As a trained sociologist, my academic experience leans heavily towards nurture-based explanations of human behavior. But a lot of social science scholarship has evolved since I received my doctorate in sociology from New York University in 1980, and much of it shows that nature-based explanations have been too easily dismissed. No... [Read more...]

Pat Oliphant, a popular syndicated cartoonist, took the occasions of the Pope’s remarks about Islam and Congressman Foley’s disgrace to bash the Catholic Church. What is particularly troubling about Oliphant’s cartoons is that he has previously spoken out against wantonly attacking a religion. Earlier this year, Oliphant deemed the... [Read more...]

On October 1, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) aired a documentary, “Sex Crimes and the Vatican,” that accused Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) of covering up priestly sexual abuse for 20 years. The show, which aired on the BBC’s flagship, Panorama, says that Cardinal Ratzinger had been in charge of enforcing... [Read more...]

Former congressman Mark Foley resigned from the House on September 29 following news that he sent sexually explicit e-mails to congressional pages. On October 3, his lawyer gave a news conference, during which he said Foley was abused by a clergyman when he was a teenager. Since Foley is a Catholic, the suggestion is that a priest abused him.
Foley’s... [Read more...]

We just had two bouts with left-wing extremists that we’d like to share with you.
Kirsten A. Powers is a former member of the Clinton administration and a New York-based consultant to the Democratic party. She recently wrote a piece for The American Prospect, an online left-wing outlet, that was so good we asked for permission to reprint it in Catalyst;... [Read more...]

It’s interesting that the Catholic Church has been a major topic of discussion recently on the ABC-TV show “The View.” It’s unfortunate, however, that the discussion was nothing but ridicule and slander.
On the September 28 program, the four panelists held a glass of red wine while joking about its alcoholic effects. After Rosie... [Read more...]

When a TV show called for Bill Donohue to go on the air and discuss the movie, “Deliver Us From Evil,” he declined. He did so because he did not want to give the film free publicity; it opened October 13 in a small number of theaters in a few major cities. When it comes to big movies like “The Da Vinci Code,” we can’t ignore... [Read more...]

Pope Benedict XVI’s speech on September 12 at the University of Regensburg in Germany elicited reactions from many critics, with some of them calling for the pope’s head. Here is the worst of the worst:
· September 14, Ali Bardakoglu, head of Turkey’s Directorate General for Religious Affairs told NTV (Turkey): “The... [Read more...]